Tuesday, 25 October 2011

Gertie and I had a nice long weekend in Vianden, Luxemburg. The weather was perfect for autumn, sunny and crispy fresh air. We made long walks, visited the castle, and toured through the surroundings. And had good food, like the cheese fondue I sketched below. The drawing of the castle was made while enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee in the local café du pont.Lang weekeinde in Vianden, Luxemburg. Prachtig herfstweer, zonnig en lekker fris; perfect geschikt voor mooie wandelingen door de bosrijke omgeving. En niet te vergeten, goed eten.

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

Nowadays my desk is at a chemical plant, Chemelot-DSM in Geleen (Netherlands). When I look up from my laptop I see stacks, pipebridges, pumps, flares and vessels. This reactor is next to the office, but I have no idea what they produce here. I just see the orange neonlights reflecting in the vapour clouds coming from the cooling towers.
I brushed over my non-waterproof fountainpen drawing to get the grainy and gritty feel.Mijn werkplek op het Chemelot terrein kijkt uit over de chemische fabrieken van DSM. Geen idee wat in deze plant wordt geproduceerd, hij staat naast ons kantoor. Gemaakt met niet-watervaste vulpeninkt en waterverf.

Friday, 14 October 2011

Experimenting with other tools. A bit like Sanjeev Joshi's style of painting/drawing, but not nearly as good as his. Wet-in-wet watercolour and sepia coloured paintbrushes. Based on a picture of an abandoned shed in Java, made during our biketour around Prambanan (Yogyakarta). Experimenten met nat-in-nat aquarel en paintbrush. Schuur in Java, vlakbij Yogyakarta.

Wednesday, 12 October 2011

After visiting the bright lights of the Marina, we went for the total contrast of Little India, just two metrostops away. All streets were decorated because of some kind of Indian festivity: Deepavali. The streets were still crowded (11 pm), and there were brightly coloured stalls selling all kind of Indian kitsch. This is a corner in Douglas street; evening lit grocery stores. We had some delicious Indian dinner shortly after.

Monday, 10 October 2011

Wednesday evening we took the metro to Raffles place and had this fantastic view over the Marina. What you see is the Marina bay casino, with a huge swimming pool on top. On the left a modern art museum.
Drawn on location, but painted at home, it was difficult to get the night feel right.

Sunday, 9 October 2011

On Wednesday we visited the building site for the new chemical plant I am designing. It is located on Jurong Island, an artificial island of about 30km2, just off the coast of Singapore city. The island is dedicated to heavy industry like ports, oil tanker parks and chemical plants.
There is heavy security before you can enter the island, sometimes taking more than an hour for making passes and security checks. For some reason you are not allowed to bring cameras to the island, so I had to fall back on pre-digital era tools like pen and ink. A quick sketch of the Lanxess building site.

Friday, 7 October 2011

I just returned from a quick visit to Singapore, for a building project I am working on. Me and my colleague Danny flew 12 hours on Monday to arrive in Singapore at 5 a.m. on Tuesday. We went to all kind of meetings untill 6 pm., and took dinner in a Japanese restaurant near our hotel on Orchard road. Which is the shopping heart of Singapore. I have never seen so many multi-story shopping malls so close to each other in my life. Next morning (still bothered by jet lag) I went out before breakfast to make this sketch of the Ion shopping mall. Painted it in the plane back home.Afgelopen week een kort bezoek aan Singapore voor een nieuwbouw project. Schets van een van de ontelbaar vele shopping malls op Orchard road, het shopping centrum van Singapore.

Sunday, 2 October 2011

My present desk is at a chemical plant, so no nice lunchtime walks to the Maastricht citycenter. When I get bored during lunchbreak I sketch something like this. One of the most beautiful cars in the 70s car rally championships: the Renault Alpine. Schets van een Renault Alpine.